From the Ashes
by raspbewwies
Summary: Canon, Post-war. 50 drabbles on Konoha's rebirth from the ashes. Multiple characters. Possible warning for spoilers from the manga.
1. 1: Pomp

**Prompt #1: Pomp**

When he took his seat in the chair men far greater than he had once delivered judgement or punishment, he could not see the celebration.

He could not feel the thumps of congratulations, he did not hear the swarms of people cheering infront of him. They needed something to celebrate for, some sign of birth from the ashes. He understood this.

The title weighed heavily on his head.

He had never asked for this. Just like he had never asked for Obito to turn into a monster, or Rin to impale herself on his Lightning Cutter. He never wanted to sit in the seat the Uchiha had died for or kill the gentle girl who found it in her to love him.

The pomp rings in his hollow ears. If they need some sign of birth from the ashes; he would give it to them. He would at least try to do that right.


	2. 2: Brimstone

**A/N: Standard Disclaimers apply.**

**Prompt #2: Brimstone**

Uchiha Obito tasted death on his tongue.

It tasted of ash.

He lay looking at the eye he had given to the upstart jonin who, ironically, had everything he never did: a life, a village, Rin.

And his eye, of course.

He tasted revenge and punishment, yet the silver haired man only looked wretched. He looked broken, and Obito can't help but feel vindicated that they were at the same level, the same pitch black hell.

So he closes his eyes, waiting for the blade to swing, for his death sentence delivered by a man as broken as he is.


	3. 3: Hegemony

**Prompt #3: Hegemony**

Theirs was a dance.

Madara can't deny the beauty to his movement. He never could. There was a lithe fluidity about how the Senju moved, an overwhelming sense of his power wafted off his sweat-drenched skin.

The Uchiha knew this battle of theirs, fought at the brink of destruction, was going to end much the same as the rest of them. He would kneel; he would fall at the feet of the man who always stood above him, no matter how many times he told him, between blows, that they were _brothers._

So he kneels. He kneels to this god among men; the god that had shaken and torn him, then drove a blade through his heart while the heavens rumbled overhead.

So it was, so it will be.


	4. 4: Seraphim

**Prompt #4: Seraphim**

She had watched from afar as he burned.

He burned dark flames that lazily licked the dusky sky. He covered himself in a raging fire as he watched the beast burn in his flames. Not for the first time, she thought of a fearsome angel from hell.

Because really, Uchiha Sasuke had no place in heaven. His flames beckoned from the depths of the dark to consume what was born from the dark.

That is why the wind next to him, the resilient, knuckle-headed wind, pushed him, synchronising perfectly as the heavens blew sharp gusts to wipe the dark.

That is where Haruno Sakura fit in the puzzle. Caught between the heavens and hell, she was the living.


	5. 5: Pony

**Prompt #5: Pony**

One day, Sakura dragged him pony riding.

She literally grabbed the scruff of his neck and dragged him to ride on a _pony. _He didn't argue. He still wanted to live.

She led him to Training Ground Three, where he first gave Team Seven their bell test. It was dusky and getting darker, and there it was. A pony, tied to one of the trees.

Sakura joined the two darker figures leaning close to another tree. There they were, the three successors to the Sannin, scrawny brats not long ago.

So although he has piles of paperwork to do and his head is screaming, when all three (he has missed on saying that for a long time) of his students get him to ride a pony because he was _too darned stressed_, he does.

He looks ridiculous, of course. That's alright, though. They are laughing (one is smirking), and in them he can see hope. So he rides the pony, and falls off it, and still sees hope.


	6. 6: Substance

**Prompt #6: Substance**

To Sasuke, hatred was a thick, viscous substance flowing sluggishly in his blood. It stopped and deposited in his arms, his eyes, his brain, before it could complete its rounds. He could blame it on the substance, the goddarned substance, as his hands wrapped around her neck like a vise, his eyes flashed crimson red, and his brain was high with insanity.

The substance also had an annoying way of shining out of him so everyone else kept far away from him, as if it were contagious. It might as well be. He was treated with tight looks of distrust, excepting his deadlast something-of-a-friend. Not her. She has reached her limit to how much of the substance she can stand.

She flinches when he is near and he can almost feel how his hands must have felt on her throat. He is desperate to clean out the substance. It's suffocating him, eating him up, and there's no use it serves to him anymore.

It is raining today. He waits outside the hospital, waits until she comes out with piles of files and pink hair bunched up. When he offers her his umbrella, she smiles and joins him as they walk into the night.

The substance leaks off and dies as the rain washes him clean.


	7. 7: Forest

**Prompt #7: Forest**

As the Edo Tensei was released, Hashirama Senju's last thought was that of a forest. He thought of the forest that now covered the barren space he and his friend (moremoremoresomuchmorethanafriend) spun their dreams for the future, drunk on possibility.

As Uzumaki Naruto watched his two best friends promise to love and to hold, he thought they were like trees in a forest, twining together, depending on each other.

When Uchiha Sasuke clasps hands with his deadlast something-of-a-friend, he thinks they are branches of the same tree, growing in separate directions as they reach for the skies.

The forest had been razed to the ground in the war. As Konoha plants the seeds of trees that would grow to replace them, their thoughts are of their children who sow hope in their hearts. For whom they fought and won, and will fight again.


	8. 8: Nails

**A/N: Many thanks for the follows and the reviews ^.^ **

**Prompt #8: Nails**

Ino's nails were always painted a light pink.

Nara Shikamaru thinks that it's a sweet colour, babyish and innocent. Not, of course, that he would really _admit _that. To her face, at any rate.

Still, it hadn't escaped his notice when they idly stared at the clouds on days where she didn't have to be at the shop and he was spared of his troublesome duties on the council. While she pointed out completely _ludicrous_ shapes for things that were obviously just blobs of white cotton candy, he was acutely aware of her fingers, their nails painted a light pink.

Theirs is a kiss beneath cotton candy skies in colours of light pink and orange. Theirs was the first wedding after the war, an event almost half the populace is invited to and was inevitably a trainwreck. Naruto was completely drunk on sake as his "initiation to manhood", while Chouji was downing all the food within visible range in the middle of the ceremony. Chomp chomp is so _bothersome_.

As she twines her hand in his, he notices her nails are still pink. He decides _hell with it_, and kisses them.


	9. 9: Thunder

**A/N: Flufffff fluff fluff fluff :3**

**Prompt #9: Thunder**

Uzumaki Mae is a baby born in the middle of a storm.

In the waiting room, her father is pacing anxiously, strangely quiet and absolutely petrified. His shy, gentle wife was in that _room, _in the middle of a _storm _and he's in the _waiting room._ _It makes no sense, dattebayo._

"Tch. Stop panicking." That would be her father's best friend, the raven haired man she would come to call Unca Sauce-kay. "Sakura is with her. She won't die."

"Hinata is _FRAGILE."_ Her father is almost screeching.

"Women are all built the same way."

"Teme, you're cold and DEAD inside. I don't listen to you, dattebayo."

Silence ensues, punctuated by blasts of thunder when it dragged on for too long. The silence is full of fear.

Her father's pink haired friend, who Mae will grow up to call Auntie Saku, comes into the waiting room. She's beaming.

"It's a girl."


	10. 10: Cannula

**Prompt #10: Cannula**

The IV fluid drips into the cannula in time with the lazy hands of the clock.

Sakura can't help but think of the irony of it all. She was lying on a bed in the hospital she spent half of her life in. She chose to specialise in obscetrics and gynaecology and this was her second miscarriage.

This time, the baby had been formed. She can't wipe the horror and (yes, she will admit it) revulsion that struck her as she saw that bloody little alien, struggling for breath.

She was tired of being a disappointment. She had been a disappointment of a kunoichi for most of her life, now she's a disappointment as a wife. She would _not_ cry, even if she could.

She just turns sharply, away from the clock reminding her of her canula, of the IV and why she was here for the second time.

She turns just in time to see Sasuke slumped by the bed, soundly asleep, clutching her hand.

The disappointment rises in her throat and threatens to crush her.

She would cry, if she could.


	11. 11: Hollow

**A/N: Thanks a bunch for the reviews **** You're welcome to add any prompts you would like me to use.**

**Prompt #11: Hollow**

Tenten is hollow.

It's hard for her to think that she could have foreseen this. She was the complete opposite of hollow for most of her fifteen years. Never would she have dreamt that the Hyuuga could have taken most of her along with all of him when he jumped (stupidlygallantlynobly) in the middle.

As she flings weapon by weapon onto targets without fail, she can't help but think that in this optimism, she's just another unrecorded casualty of war. She is one of the living reminders of the sacrifice the peace of Konoha needed.

She hates them for it. Sometimes.


	12. 12: Gash

**Prompt #12: Gash**

Sakura runs a finger over the long gash that stretches over her taut skin.

The morning is slow to rise and the clammy feel of cold clings to their bedroom. Her husband sleeps next to her, sound and dreamless. She looks over to the cot and her gash stings.

Little Ren had been a difficult pregnancy and an even harder delivery. They had been on tenterhooks for nine months and she had refused to even hope he would make it.

He was born a blue baby. She knew she had been wrong to hope when her teacher's face loomed grimly.

When she held him to her heart, he gave a small start. He lived, despite her logic and her despair telling her that the _universe had never really been fair, why should it now?_

He came back to her, just like his father did.


End file.
